But Robert Duncan was made of stern stuff. Abandoned by an abusive mother, (who later died in a house fire at the age of 62), a mostly absent father; he was surrounded by an extended family that nurtured him and kept him on the straight and narrow.

From a sickly childhood, pushed by a devout teetotalling Methodist aunt, young Robert was offered a "godly bribe" to attend Sunday School and church. Apparently, it took hold. Later in confirmation class he met Jesus and his life was forever changed.

It all took place in an unlikely encounter in an episcopal parish in New Jersey. Robert learned about Jesus Christ, His love, Robert's own sinfulness, and the possibility of redemption.

A stint in military school gave him the backbone he needed. At Christ Church Bordentown, NJ he became an acolyte. "I was introduced to another world -- another kingdom -- unlike anything that I had known before. It was here that he heard the call to the priesthood.; "You will be my priest." It was at a Diocesan Youth event that he met Nara who would become his wife.

It was while studying at Trinity College Hartford and hearing conflicting theological views that he would describe his "evangelical decision for Christ." He later attended General Theological Seminary where he survived the onslaughts of liberal theology. He was encouraged towards obtaining a doctorate and entered the University of Edinburgh, but he soon became convinced that he was not supposed to be there. He returned to the US in 1973. After a year at a parish in Merchantville, NJ he got a call from Roland Foster at General Seminary in NY to be the dean of students. He would be a parish purist in an academic setting.

Duncan felt the first sting of betrayal when he was fired from this position as was his boss. But then an opening came at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill. He was aided in his search by Fitz Allison who was then rector at Grace Episcopal Church in NY. Allison would later go on to become the Bishop of South Carolina.

Another theological move came when he found the Anglo-Catholic environment and the security it afforded him to becoming an apologist for the reformed catholic faith in the evangelical Bible belt South.

His conversion to foreign mission came in the early 80's when he visited Haiti. A near death experience with their daughter focused Duncan on his marriage which was in danger of coming unglued. But through it all they stayed together.

Then came the call to submit his name to be the canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, a position wrought with conflict in a declining mining area with skyrocketing unemployment and new theological currents. But with a newly reinvigorated evangelical bishop in the person of Alden Hathaway, Duncan got the job and he worked hard building relationships in the diocese. In 1995 Bishop Hathaway called for a Bishop Coadjutor. Bob Duncan's name went forward. He was elected on the third ballot.

A resource of inestimable value for the bishops of Pittsburgh was the Trinity School for Ministry at Ambridge, PA. Founded in 1975 as part of the movement to recover the evangelical soul and missionary call of the Episcopal Church, Trinity would grow to being the largest of the Episcopal seminaries.

A new day had dawned for the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan.

Pittsburgh under him was a three streams and two integrities diocese. It was evangelical and catholic and open to the Holy Spirit. It also embodied significant disagreement over the ordination of women. "It was like the whole of Anglicanism is the last decade of the twentieth century," he wrote.

The Thirteenth Lambeth Conference of Bishops in August 1998 was a watershed event in the life of the Anglican Communion. Resolution1:10 became a game changer. With his fellow Pennsylvania bishops there was the belief that they would get through the road blocks. Charles Bennison the ultra-liberal Bishop of (Eastern) PA had made the outrageous statement, "The Church determined what was in the Bible, so the Church can re-write the Bible." They parted ways.

New paths forward were on the horizon. Duncan made friends with the equally evangelical Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. Through his endeavors Networks of Anglicans in Mission and Evangelism came into being. Visits were made to Rwanda and a First Promise statement weas drawn up. The Reformed Episcopal Church had been watching on the side and a gathering Anglican Diaspora began to emerge. It soon became apparent that orthodox Anglicans were assembling in Canada and the die was cast. GAFCON'S (2008) call for the establishment of a North American province was now in the works and ready to roll. Duncan was the clear leader of the new movement.

The 2003 Gene Robinson consecration, and the refusal of TEC to reverse course, made it clear that separation was now a reality. "With this action this Church has abandoned the consistent teaching of the Holy Scriptures and the Christian Church throughout the ages," wrote Duncan.

Archbishop Rowan Williams called for an emergency meeting of the Primates at Lambeth in June 2006. Duncan attended and came home the leader. Williams argued that the orthodox would blink first. It didn't happen. Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola wrote the book, "Who Blinks First" and Rowan Williams was history.

A meeting of the leaders of the emerging orthodox Episcopalians met in Plano, and got the endorsement from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote words of endorsement to the Plano Conference of 2003 infuriating Episcopalians. Duncan had won the day.

By 2005, tensions in the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops ran high. It became clear to Bob that it was over for him and the emerging American Anglican Council bishops that it was a fait accompli. It was not till the spring of 2007 at the HOB meeting at Camp Arrowhead that Duncan realized his time in the Episcopal Church was ending. Across the country numerous congregations, out of step with their progressive bishops were separating themselves from their dioceses and coming under the protection of foreign bishops and foreign dioceses.

A meeting in Nairobi in January 2008 sealed the deal. The Global Anglican Future Conference was born and they met in Jerusalem. A duplicitous deposition by PB Jefferts Schori and Duncan was history In the Episcopal Church. "My mother the Episcopal Church had rejected me, but neither the Lord nor an extraordinary company of the saints would."

The Jerusalem Statement of the Global Anglican Future Conference in June of 2008 stated: "we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognized by the Primates' Council."

In 2009 in Christ Church Plano, Robert William Duncan was invested as the Province's Archbishop. Numerous Global South Primates were present.

God's vision for the Anglican Church in North America was given five or six years before the province came into being: Biblical, Missionary and United. A vision for planting 1000 churches was born.

A serious fly in the Anglican ointment came in the person of Bishop Chuck Murphy when, as the leader of the AMiA, he reduced his participation to "mission partner". Murphy would later argue that his bishops were no longer under Rwanda forcing Duncan to say that AMIA could not be constitutionally be a part of the ACNA. Murphy's sociopathic behavior all but destroyed his movement. In time all his bishops fled to the ecclesiastical safety of the ACNA.

When the GAFCON II Primates Council met in Nairobi in 2013, a jaw infection confirmed his decision to be a one term archbishop. Bishop Foley Beach would succeed him. In 2019 a New Book of Common Prayer was authorized.

Bob rounded out his ministry by proposing a "covenantal structure" to halt global Anglicanism's slide into meaningless heterodoxy. "The years ahead will tell whether the second effort produces the fruit of the longed-for stabilization of Anglicanism," he wrote.

What will the future hold? "There is at least the possibility that GAFCON, analogous to the role of the American Anglican Council in the Anglican Church in North America, can reassert itself as a movement, and as the voice of Reformation Anglicanism within Global South Anglicans."

One hopes that in time, the story of Anglicanism will be filled out with more scholarly in-depth accounts of what transpired. One thing is for sure, in this autobiography, history was made by one man, and from which there is no retreat. The face of Anglicanism in North America has forever changed.

The book can be purchased here: https://anglicanhousepublishers.org/the-shop/